"WASHINGTON, Aug. 8  President Bush, seeking to reassure
Americans about the economy
and combat Democratic criticism of
his policies, said on
Wednesday that recent financial market
turbulence
was not a cause for worry but a natural adjustment from the improvident
lending of recent years.

(I say, "Phooey! Trust You Once, Shame on You...
Trust You Anymore,
Shame on Me".
Your Iraq war will cost 1 trillion dollars and more
when all the bills come
in. That is the primary reason the US credit
is over-extended! )

I believe that markets ultimately look at the fundamentals of
any
economy,
Mr. Bush said. And the fundamentals of our economy
are strong.
Inflation is down. Real wages are increasing. The job
market is a
strong job market. People are working.
Small
businesses
are flourishing.

It
has been widely reported that President Bush simply refuses to turn against the surge in
Iraq, or even
compromise
on it.... I have long believed that stock markets are the best barometer of the
health, wealth
and
security of a nation.

Quote from VP Dick Cheney about what the US will do after the invasion of Iraq
"Well, I don't know, we
haven't thought much about that." Fortune Magazine

Quote fromSenate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
"It is
laughable that a man who has turned record surpluses into record deficits would lecture
anyone
about
proper investments for our nation."

=================================================================== Recall what Conservatives Said in 2002.

Unending war, sacrificing free
trade, breaking with Europe and telling allies to shove it,
spending his time on planning a new war, neglecting domestic issues, making America the
enemy
of the whole Moslem world, disaffecting his Republican base, fumbling the battle against
terrorism,
and more. No wonder the stock
market is afraid. World prosperity is necessary for American prosperity and history
teaches that wars always drive the market lower.

A former
Reaganaut warns, "The way things are going, it will soon be the United States
against the
world." That comment, by a top political leader in Kuala Lumpur, was just one of
hundreds of
expressions of a new and disturbing alienation from America that I heard during a recent
swing
through 14 Asian, European and Latin American capitals.

What a contrast to the
supportive attitudes abroad immediately after Sept. 11! Then, the
sometimes anti-American French journal Le Monde captured the world's sentiment with
a
headline proclaiming: "We are all Americans." Ten months later, sympathy for the
victims of the
terror attacks remains. However, the American image is increasingly perceived as ugly, and
support abroad for U.S. policies is plummeting...

Moreover, columnist Paul
Craig Roberts warns, "It is absurd for the Bush Administration to
spend so much time on Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq when its position in the world rests
much more on its stock
market than on its armaments .Today, Washington is focused on
wasting resources on wars ."

Fortune
Magazine warns that the market is nervous about a Bush attack on Iraq,
specifically
because there is no rational thinking or discussion in Washington about the consequences
post-"victory".
For Bush's worldly
advisor Dick Cheney that is nothing new. Twelve years ago, before the first
attack on Iraq he was asked, "What will we do after we win?" His answer 
"Well, I don't know, we haven't thought much about that." Well the stock market is thinking
about it.
The unknowns include possible destruction of oil production, further alienation of other
Muslims by
killing tens of thousands more Iraqis, possible overthrow of the Saudi government and
other chaos.

The greatest threat is the
collapsing consensus in Washington for free trade. Bush steel tariffs and
his complementary caving in to new agricultural subsidies are serious threats against
international
trade. These policies weaken the pro free trade constituency. In response to these
policies, Europeans
havethreatened reprisal tariffs. Supply
sider Jude Wanniski made his first mark as a young economist
researching how the stock
market crash of 1929 came about the day after the
coalition to block the
Smoot Hawley tariff fell apart in Congress. Interestingly, like today, in 1929 the
newspapers failed
at first to recognize that the crash was for foreign policy reasons.
ess. Fortune Magazine foresaw that threat last October: